When her mother offers Rose a Mediterranean cruise with her two children, she jumps at the chance to get away from her husband who drinks too much, and the renovations of their holiday house in the south. But one night the cruise ship comes upon a shipwrecked boat full of refugees, who are taken aboard. Without telling her teenage son, Rose gives his mobile phone to a young Nigerian refugee. Does she want to be some kind of a hero, ease her conscience? Now what is she in for? The secret phone connection takes Rose and her family on a journey of discovery. With her trademark wit and acid intelligence, Marie Darrieussecq, like Rachel Cusk or Jenny Offill, shines a light on issues of individual responsibility in our complex world.
Author
Marie Darrieussecq was born on January 3, 1969. She was raised in a small village in the Basque Country. While finishing her PhD in French Literature, she wrote her first novel, Truismes (Pig Tales) which was published in September 1996 by Paul Otchakovsky-Laurens (POL), who have published all her subsequent novels as well. After the success of Truismes, Darrieussecq decided to quit her teaching position at the University of Lille to concentrate on writing her novels. Her first husband was a mathematician, her second is an astrophysicist. She gave birth to a son in 2001 and to a daughter in 2004. She endorsed Ségolène Royal's candidacy during the French Presidential Elections of 2007.
